Her counterattack was a driving gale that nearly unseated Roger. If he had defended himself with anything less than Kastenessen’s desecrated hand, her outrage and despair would have charred the marrow of his bones. But his magma caught her blow; held it back as if he were equal to every aspect of her.

Bhapa was panting, “Ringthane, Ringthane,” as though she had appalled him. Stave regarded Earthpower transformed to fuligin with a suggestion of chagrin in his eye. Apparently they had not grasped the true scale of her transubstantiation. Liand’s death had completed a change begun in the graveyard of Jeremiah’s mind; an alteration inspired by She Who Must Not Be Named, and by dreams of being carrion, and by Gallows Howe.

Below her, the first Cavewights reached the foot of the ridge. Mad as a rabble, and vicious as kresh, they charged upward, a rising scend of slaughter.

The Ironhand gave them a moment. Then, crying, “Stone and Sea!” she and Frostheart Grueburn and Halewhole Bluntfist sprang to meet the rabid rush.

From the tumult of creatures, spears streaked the air. A few crossed the path of Linden’s black flame and became powder, harmless amid the howling. Stave caught one, used it to deflect another, then threw it back, all in the same motion. Pahni and Bhapa jerked Covenant away from a shaft which would have nailed him to the crumbling gypsum. Branl grabbed two more out of the air. When he returned them, one burst into slivers against the rough armor of its target; but the other took a Cavewight in the throat and sent the creature sprawling backward, sweeping half a dozen more off their feet as it fell.

Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist did not waste their swords on armor. With wheeling strokes as fatal as Linden’s fire, they hacked at arms and legs, at exposed necks and skulls. Then, as their first assailants fell, tripping Cavewights lower on the slope, the three Swordmainnir allowed themselves to be driven back. Deliberately they retreated to higher ground.

At the same time, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Onyx Stonemage flung themselves into the battle, protecting their comrades with their own attack. Stonemage had claimed a spear. Now she fought with two weapons, swinging her longsword and jabbing with the spear as though she had spent centuries training to do so.

That quick succession of countering assaults, three and then three, disrupted the initial charge; blunted it. More and more Cavewights stumbled over their fallen. Some lost their footing. Others staggered aside. When Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist rushed downward again, they drove their foes back.

In the confusion of toppling bodies and spraying blood, the first onslaught of the Cavewights became a rout.